Guildford Chartered Accountants / Chartered Tax Advisers

Accountants in Guildford Town Centre

Cost vs Benefit

It’s all about cost vs benefit: getting it right from the beginning. We will spend quality time with you at the outset, listening to you and your problems, so that we can help you decide what service you would like from a Guildford Accountant. You will know how much it will cost before work begins. We will help you decide what you would like to do yourself and what you would like us to do. Whether you need a comprehensive service with top level tax advice, or a basic “no frills” service, we will go through some options with you.

Big Picture Accountants

We have your objectives in mind, not our agenda. We pride ourselves on being Accountants in Guildford that listen carefully to what you want, and give it to you: not providing inappropriate advice or getting stuck on unimportant details. For example, if you are after maximum take home pay, we don’t reduce one tax just to increase another somewhere else, or charge almost as much as the tax you just saved for tax saving work. If there is a big problem or issue, we’ll proactively contact you and tell you about it, we won’t hide it, or tell you about something less important instead.

Plain English Accountants

We listen and speak your language. Our principal was a successful Physics teacher at secondary comprehensive schools for five years before becoming an accountant. He is well versed in the art of explaining things to clients in a way they understand and need. This art is proactively taught and passed on to all other members of staff. We try hard to be the accountants in Guildford that businesses are looking for.

Guildford Top Tax Accountants

We understand that a lot of people use an accountant just to save tax. We understand that clients pay a lot of money for accounting and tax services. We have put a lot of effort and resources into being leaders in tax and business advice in Guildford because we recognise that for a lot of clients, it is the access to top level advice that makes paying accountants worthwhile. We take pride in the fact that we are the only accountants in Guildford that we are aware of, where all the senior staff are required to be qualified as both chartered accountants and chartered tax advisers.

Experts in Administration

It’s what you expect an accountant to be! Having many clients with different services and deadlines is part of what it means to offer accounting and tax services in Guildford today. However, it is surprising how many accountancy firms don’t do this well: missing deadlines, not getting back to people, forgetting appointments… We can handle this all and do it well. In rare cases when we do make mistakes, we don’t go into hiding, but are frank with you and bend over backwards to get any problem fixed asap.

Do you need an accountant for your business?

Case Study: Bamboo Landscaping Ltd

The director of this company near Guildford came to Numerica 2 years ago, recommended by a friend of his, due to a lack of service from his prior accountant.

Problems he identified:

Statutory deadlines had been missed;

The accountant had lost some of his records;

The year-end accounts didn’t make sense;

The accounts were always completed very close to the filing deadline, and so no tax/business planning could be undertaken;

He was given surprise tax bills to pay, running into thousands of pounds, and was told about them only a few days before due payment;

The accountant could not explain parts of the service he provided in plain English, but told the director “this is complicated to explain, you won’t understand it”.

Since Numerica Accountants took over, they identified further problems caused by the prior accountant the director wasn’t aware of:

The prior accountant had been filing PAYE records with HMRC under a different entity which had since closed 2 years earlier;

HMRC were asking for £22,000 of non-existent taxes;

The bookkeeping hadn’t been done for over a year and was of a very poor standard.

Numerica managed to rectify all these issues.

The director now gets all accounts and tax returns filed 7 months before they are due, thus giving the director 7 months’ notice of tax bills to pay.

The director has been advised on a number of issues that he is most satisfied with, including: succession planning, tax credits, cash flow planning, employment issues, sub-contractor legislation and tax saving opportunities to name but a few.

Needless-to-say, the director is extremely happy with the service provided by Numerica and is happy to recommend their services through the use of this case study.

P Newman, Woking Investments Ltd.

I have found Peter to be very focused and diligent in preparing accounts for my companies and personal tax return. He has also offered good advice. Peter is also very approachable and helpful when I have needed his help with certifying documents and other matters.

10% DISCOUNT FOR YOUR FIRST YEAR WITH US!

RTI: REAL TIME INFORMATION FOR PAYROLL

The coming tax year ahead heralds Real Time Information Payroll for Guildford and Surrey Accountants. Basically this means that instead of informing HMRC what employees’ pay and taxes are once a year, it will be done monthly online (perhaps via payroll software with internet connectivity). Some people may be shocked to know that this doesn’t happen already. Accountants have always been doing the payroll monthly, so don’t they pass on that information monthly already? No. HMRC have historically waited until the end of the tax year so as to minimise their own administration. The main reason the government wants to do this now is because tax credits currently are worked out on guesstimates from the previous tax year, where they often overpay people and then have to try to recover the money. This new process allows them to calculate tax credits on “Real Time Information”, hence the abbreviation RTI. You might think that the extra administrative burden on HMRC to deal with this would outweigh the benefit. However, with the advent of iXBRL (online accounting information passed over the internet) there is very little admin as it all happens automatically as far as HMRC is concerned, with very little human input at their end. It is the businesses and their accountants who have the extra administrative burden, as they have to send the figures to HMRC each month. Some Guildford accountants are busy scratching their heads as to the practical problems involved, especially for micro businesses that only run payroll perhaps once or a few times a year. It is likely that costs will therefore rise for outsourced payroll. Our clients in the Guildford area will be pleased to know that we shall be ready for a smooth transition when the changes take place: we pride ourselves on being accountants ready for every new challenge.

ACCOUNTANTS IN GUILDFORD AND SURREY BEWARE: LARGE DROP IN PENSION ANNUAL ALLOWANCE

Guildford and Surrey owner-managers will be sad to hear that HMRC have recently announced a large drop in the Personal Pension allowance. Until the end of this tax year, individuals (and their employers) are allowed to contribute up to £255,000 each year towards a personal pension without incurring income tax (subject to income levels). However, for the coming tax year ahead and beyond, this will drop to just £50,000 per tax year (although one may contribute up to £150,000 if the allowance for the two prior years haven’t been used- £50,000 for each year). Therefore, accountants in Guildford are busy advising their clients to take as much pension up to £255,000 as they can, if they usually make pension payments well above the £50,000 limit that will be imposed from 5th April 2011. To find out how this may affect you, you can contact us: your friendly Guildford accountants.

PEAL NETWORKING IN GUILFORD

PEAL Networking in Guildford is an informal “dip in and dip out” networking event held bi-monthly (monthly meetings alternate between Guildford and Haslemere). Cost is £20 per meeting including buffet lunch. It is on the last Friday of every other month, currently at the Guildford Cricket Club. There is a range of business types represented, with a couple of accountants going including accountant representation from Numerica most months. Meetings start with informal networking, followed by one minute introductions and a topical business related formal discussion. Sometimes a guest speaker/presenter will give a short lecture on a current pressing issue. The group is led by an excellent host: Philip Mendonça.